BACK
NED STRAWBERRY
sean ruane
Ned Strawberry lives in a one bedroom efficiency. Outside, seven feet from his
room, across the alley where squalors of paper and trash blow around in a morose
pantomime of post-war ticker-tape, a broken neon sign twitches and buzzes.
Ned closes the window.
That usually stops the sound from interfering with his days, but at night he can still
see that epileptic light lurch through his windows and writhe across the ceiling;
closed, heavily blinded, it makes no difference.
*************
The light scampers to gain access through the weather stripping, elbowing
Loneliness in the gut on the way in. Loneliness slides through the sash, leans against
a wall, and waits to be noticed. He lights a cigarette.
**************
The buzzing gives Ned Strawberry thoughts. It reminds him that he is still alive and it
is night. Sometimes he hears whispering.
***************
He observes Loneliness leaning raffishly against the far wall. Is that one of his
cigarettes? He thought he had finished the last pack. Come in, he thinks, and stand
by the light; I want to feel your shadow. It drives him mad the speed at which
Loneliness moves once he’s noticed. Would you care for some Schlitz, Loneliness? I
left you a swig.
No?
Suit yourself.
I’ll take it then, thinks Ned Strawberry, drinks Ned Strawberry. Ned's balls itch.
****************
Loneliness wears hair gel and a white linen suit. Ned Strawberry suspects that
Loneliness has places to be later on and wants to look good, to make an impression.
Loneliness blows a cloud of smoke in Ned’s direction. Through the smoke he can see
his eyes, bright prison sunrises. There is a certain handicapped lady that he has an
eye on, Loneliness does. She sits and waits for a bus beneath a broken street lamp.
He has a soft spot for bus stops and one-legged claphounds.
****************
Sleep with the light on, Ned decides. He can tolerate the incandescent monotony of
his own bedroom light, that single bulb dangling from a swaying cord. Sometimes,
before bed, he’ll bump it deliberately and watch the soothing back and forth
movement, feel at ease with the repetition of the shadows that lengthen then
shorten. He’ll let his mind wander between past and present, never the future, and
lose himself in the catawampus of shadow that creeps behind the sweaty exposed
plumbing, those pin-holed copper conduits that asymptote the derelict wall opposite
his bed. That wall, those walls-—four cornered fuckups, a one-eyed carpenter’s
single handed folly! The tributaries of cracked plaster, the chiaroscuro of neglect--
Ned Strawberry is quite sure that one day the cracks from all four walls will conspire
to meet on the ceiling and the ‘pop’ of their intersection will be the last earthly sound
he hears.
****************
Loneliness looks at his watch and then at Ned Strawberry. This guy is a real piece of
work, he thinks. How long have they been seeing each other? About five years by his
estimate. Ned Strawberry is resolute in his persistence, watering his dead plants, at
times touching his balls.
****************
Ned Strawberry notices the condescension in the way Loneliness taps his watch and
slowly brings it up to his ear. Yes, your watch isn’t broken, you yawny wall leaner!
Schlitz make Ned Strawberry pass out on the futon.
****************
Loneliness watches over Ned; he observes how even in his stupor he can’t avoid
himself. Ned’s eyelids flicker.
Later on Ned Strawberry wakes up.
*****************
Hi, Loneliness, you promiscuous fuck. Where have you been? Oh,out?
****************
I nearly had you in Boise last year when you stayed at the Best Western, says
Loneliness. Your invitation to your cousins wedding...‘Ned Strawberry and guest’--
Ha! You came alone, to nobody’s surprise. You wore some sort of patchwork suit you
borrowed from your landlord. He only wears that suit to alcoholic meetings to
impress the resolutely weak and the semi-drunk. Which were you? I’m here to tell
you, Strawberry, that nobody at that wedding was impressed. You may recall, at the
reception, your cousin's note to that effect. I thought for sure that in the morning
some hard-luck maid would be thumbing through your wallet while you creaked at
the end of a frayed lamp cord--like that bulb that swings above your bed. Not that
I’m suggesting anything, Ned.
****************
Sometimes Ned’s phone rings, by accident. He’ll traverse the bare floor with his
funhouse gait and his mortician’s tan and go answer it. On the other end, whether or
not it is a wrong number, there is always someone yelling. He’ll clutch the phone
between a raised shoulder and a cold ear like his mother used to do when she was
too busy to break even one hand away from the swirl of her motherly duties.
He’ll walk around going “Uh-huh, yes, really?!?!” until he catches a glimpse of
himself in the mirror and feels weird, like he’s violated a memory.
Not wanting to seem impolite, he will place the phone back into its cradle with an
eavesdropper’s care.
*****************
Ring-a-ling, Strawberry, mocks Loneliness. You look terrible and tired and hungry
for pills.
One-out-of-one Mrs. Strawberry's approve of pills, shitbird. That's it, itch those balls!
*****************
At times his buzzer will ring and he’ll go to the intercom and yell, “Who is it?”
“It’s me!”
And he will let them in the building, always, without further questioning, without
considering the likelihood that they are fiends with knives and eyes set way too close
for anyone’s comfort, with penchants for impromptu woman hugging or the dark
cornered frotteuring of unattended children. None of that crosses his mind.
Ned Strawberry thinks that a cold one would be nice.
Two left in the fridge; Schlitz, of course; wide-mouthed cans; smooth flow. Yes.
Ned Strawberry takes a can and wipes off some of the condensation on his pants leg.
Opens can. Sips.
****************
Remember that time you got that nest of angry blackheads on your neck the day
before the job interview at the carrot cannery? I sure do. You thought you did so
well. You tried pinching, forcing your collar to button. Your neck ended up looking
like a weeping caesarian. You nailed that interview, Strawberry! Winking at the
receptionist on your way out was a nice touch. Pure icing!
Again with the balls!?
***************
Ned isn’t sleepy anymore. Relax on the futon? Yes. Sits. Damn but his balls itch!
Ned sits back into the futon. He places his left foot on the coffee table. Ned
Strawberry startles himself when the crystal headstones rattle against one another,
those abandoned, half-empty glasses that he so often leaves behind.
Ned Strawberry remains seated and drinks his beer slowly, deliberately, and drifts
into a semi-mellow. With his left arm sitting on the thigh of his bent left leg, he plays
with a rubber band using a thumb and forefinger; snap, snap, snap.
With his right hand, balls.
He looks at the broken television, then at the window overlooking the alley.
***************
Pimples, pimples, balls, balls...how's the Schlitz, man?
***************
Behind that smooth curtain jumps the pops and splashes of broken neon;
Loneliness is whispering something in his ear, but he can’t quite make it out; the
light outside the window, splashing against the white of the curtains, reminds him of
a bathtub electrocution.
Ned catches the chill of his own company.
After the beer, he thinks.
(c) 2008 by Sean Ruane